We live in a sex-saturated culture; it’s in the air we breathe, the people we meet, the movies we watch. Catholic convert Malcolm Muggeridge describes it aptly when he said that “the orgasm has replaced the Cross as the focus of longing and the image of fulfillment.” Chastity is viewed by the world as an unreasonable denial of self and of urges that are just “natural.” As Christians we are expected to counter this culture. The Pontifical Council for the Family defines chastity as  that “spiritual energy capable of defending love (and sex) from the perils of selfishness and aggressiveness, and able to advance it towards its full realization.” 

How many times have we heard that we are Temples of the Holy Spirit? Many, am sure. How many times have we allowed ourselves to fully comprehend what great thing it is that one Person of the Blessed Trinity resides in our very being? Probably almost never.
 
St. Paul reminded the Corinthians “Surely you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you! So if anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him.  For God’s temple is holy and you yourselves are His temple” 

He goes further to remind us “Avoid immorality. Any other sin a man commits does not affect his body; but the man who is guilty of sexual morality sins against his own body. Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourselves but to God; he bought you for a price. So use your bodies for God’s glory. ”
 
A temple is a place of worship, holy ground, a place where man goes to be with God. A temple therefore is respected and treated with great care, not because the rocks and the cement have value, but because it houses the Lord. It is similar to a person knocking first before entering a high ranking official’s office. You do not just enter because the person in there is to be honored. It’s the same as the Asian practice of taking off footwear before entering a stranger’s house. You do not want to dirty the home of someone you are not supposed to act with familiarity with.
 
But what is the implication of having the Holy Spirit residing in us? Many Christians often relate sin against the Temple of the Holy Spirit to changes that are just physical. They argue that since we are temples of the Holy Spirit, we should not have tattoos, body piercing and mutilations. And so when we talk about what St. Paul meant when he said that sexual immorality is sin against the Holy Spirit, we say it is because in sexual immortality there is physical desecration of the temple, our bodies.
 
This argument does have merit. I think though that sin against the Holy Spirit is deeper than mere physical desecration of our bodies. I believe that inappropriate sexual behavior is sin against the Holy Spirit because it affects us emotionally, mentally and spiritually as well.
 
To understand that we need first to understand what the Holy Spirit is. After the resurrection, Christ gave His apostles a helper, a counsellor that can help them in recognizing God. He told them that they would never be alone, and that He would always be with them. He breathed them the Holy Spirit that would both assist them in fulfilling their commission and give them strength in the trying times ahead.
 
The Holy Spirit therefore is that divine in us, the voice that will help us recognize God. Our greatest desire is for us to be able to do fulfil the plan the Father has for our lives, his will. 
 
There are moments when we mistakenly we are doing God’s will for us when the truth is, we are just hearing my selfish desires. This is not an uncommon scenario. We often strive to look for God’s hand in our lives, but there are moments when we are just manipulating the signs for our benefits. Since God doesn’t really talk to us directly, we are always in danger of confusing our will with His
 
So how do we know if it’s really God speaking to us through the Holy Spirit? The answer, I believe, is in making sure that all decisions we make are not emotionally motivated. If we want something to feel affirmed, wanted and cared for, chances are it’s us rather than God. If we want something too bad, to the point that letting it go is impossible, then chances are it is not from God or not yet fully from God.
 
Lust convinces us that we cannot live without something or with someone, that something is indispensable in our lives. Is that from God or from just us? Definitely, it’s just us! We are told to wait for marriage, for our own good so that we can be a person suitable for marriage. We are supposed to practice the skills of love, commitment and forgiveness first as a single before we can apply it a more intimate relationship. We are called to discern before we grab…and that discernment is the voice of the Holy Spirit.
 
Lust competes for your attention; it mutes the Holy Spirit. The way too much internet traffic jams a phone line, too many competing desires can blur the reception of what the Holy Spirit is trying to tell us. To take the analogy of a cable wire, too many lines hooked to the same wire creates a blurred TV screen, lessening the quality of message reception.
 
Lust is always pleasure on demand. Masturbation and Pornography can be done anytime and anywhere. Pre-marital sex saves us the frustration of waiting for marriage. And because it’s an accessible vice, it can assuage a human need before the need even manifests itself—or the skill to master this need is developed. Because of its addictive nature, you become so obsessed with sex or with a particular individual that the Holy Spirit doesn’t even get the opportunity to give you His counsel. It keeps you tied to it that you cannot see anything else.
 
To illustrate, if you’ve been in lust before, don’t you notice that once you’ve decided to even take even one peek at porn, or one shot at cybersex, it changes the entire way you look at the world around you? Suddenly you see sexual undertones in everything, you crave for more and more that would titillate you, you turn to more and more outrageous things! Ask a porn addict if three years ago he would have even thought about doing what he does now and the answer is no. It corrupts you of self-control and makes you bold but for the wrong reason. Courage to do things that are potentially harmful to you is not courage, it is stupidity. It’s an inability to read warning signs that you may just be in over our head.
 
An extremely sexual relationship blurs your common sense, its stops you from seeing warnings signs like: this guy/girl will not make a good spouse, this person is just using you, you are not yet mature enough to enter a relationship! I can imagine in most of our lives, the Holy Spirit flashes red warning signs but the haze of lust must have prevented us from seeing what the true situation is. Sex is like a glue that binds a couple together that even if they haven’t discussed about what is relevant, like values, character, parenting and godliness, they feel their relationship is so right.
 
Lust is putting junk in the temple, enough junk that it competes for your attention when the Holy Spirit is trying to tell you something. To discern God’s will is to discern in apt attention and concentration. Its listening to the Spirit within minus the distractions.